Apparatus for quick-blossoming chaff ejection

ABSTRACT

1. A chaff dispersion apparatus having a substantially cylindrical rocket dispensing head adapted to be fired from an aircraft, the improvement in said dispensing head comprising a main body portion, a nose cone mounted on the forward end of said main body portion and variable firing means mounted at the rearward end thereof, a plurality of sections in said rocket head located intermediate said nose cone and said firing means, a plurality of equally spaced partitions mounted perpendicularly on said main body portion forming said sections, a frangible container enclosing each section, chaff stacked in orderly rows within said containers, an explosive charge within each container mounted on the axis of said main body portion to insure that the forces of the explosive are applied to the chaff in a radial direction and said variable firing means progressively exploding said charges after said rocket head has been fired from the aircraft whereby said frangible containers are destroyed, the chaff dispersed in a radial direction and the rocket head is left intact after each explosion to continue its flight.

i1 rte States atent 1 1 [111 7 9 Edwards 1 1 May 1, 1973 [5 APPARATUS FOR QUICK- FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS BLOSSOMING CHAFF EJECTION 579,259 7/1946 Great Britain ..l02/63 [75] Inventor: William R. Edwards, California,

Md. Primary Examiner-Samuel W. Engle ASSi-gnee: The United States of America as Attorney-W. O. Quesenberry and Claude Funkhauser represented by the Secretary of the EXEMPLARY CLAIM Navy . A ff d Filed: l cha ispersion apparatus having a substantlally Jan. 16, 1959 Appl. N6..--7s7,31o

52 us. 01. ..102/34.4, 102/495, 102/63, 102/89, 343/18 E 51 1111. C1 .1 421 15/24 [58] Field 61 Search ..102/34.4, 34.5, 35.6, 102/37.6, 63, 89, 67. 70, 50, 37.7, 7.2, 34, 49; 89/1 .7 13

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 695,578 3/1902 Mclntyrc ..102/34.5

957,210 5/1918 Hitt ..l02/34 2,398,740 4/1946 Halvey 102/63 2,404,553 7/1946 Wales, Jr... ..102/70.2 P

2,41 1,862 12/1946 Arnold 102/67 2,463,233 3/1949 Alexanderson... 102/63 2,476,302 7 1949 Jeppson ..102 34.4 2,535,309 12/1950 Mari ..l02/34.4

cylindrical rocket dispensing head adapted to be fired from an aircraft, the improvement in said dispensing head comprising a main body portion, a nose cone mounted on the forward end of said main body portion and variable firing means mounted at the rearward end thereof, a plurality of sections in said rocket head located intermediate said nose cone and said fir ing means, a plurality of equally spaced partitions mounted perpendicularly on said main body portion forming said sections, a frangible container enclosing each section, chaff stacked in orderly rows within said containers, an explosive charge within each container mounted on the axis of said main body portion to insure that the forces of the explosive are applied to the chaff in a radial direction and said variable firing means progressively exploding said charges after said rocket head has been fired from the aircraft whereby said frangible containers are destroyed, the chaff dispersed in a radial direction and the rocket head is left intact after each explosion to continue its flight.

10 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures Patented May 1, 1973' 3,730,098

2 Sheets-Sheet 2 I N VENTOR WILLIAM R. EDWARDS ATTORNEY APPARATUS FOR QUICK-BLOSSOMING CI-IAFF EJECTION The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by or for the Government of the United States of America for governmental purposes without the payment of any royalties thereon or therefor.

This invention relates to a method and apparatus for quick-blossoming chaff ejection, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for uniform and controlled chaff dispersion from rockets.

It has been the practice to disperse chaff by dropping a wrapped package from an aircraft flying at low speeds and to depend upon the air stream to open the package and scatter the dipoles or chaff, this practice being based on the supposition that the direct injection of ,high pressure intothe chaff package would injure the dipoles. Inasmuch as the air stream acted upon the chaff or dipoles in an endwise direction, there was considerable hirdnesting, that is, the chaff stuck together and was not uniformly dispersed, and since there was a considerable time delay before the air stream broke open the package, accurate placement of the chaff was difficult, if not impossible. These factors,

combined with the obvious operational defect that the chaff could not be dispersed ahead of an aircraft, made chaff a heckling device protecting planes following the dispersing aircraft rather than an effective, tactical countermeasure weapon.

The present invention is based on the discovery that the dipoles are not injured by the injection of high pressure into the chaff package. Working on this principle, chaff packages are mounted in a rocket dispensing head which is fired ahead of the aircraft, the chaff packages being exploded from the rocket head at desired intervals by a force acting at right angles to the length of the dipoles thereby producing a cloud of chaff tion of the chaff will result in countermeasure protecin which birdnesting is eliminated. The efficiency of I this system of chaff dispersion is further increased by the fact that the rate and direction of dispersion can be accurately controlled thereby providing protection of the dispensing aircraft from fire control radar and op-v portunity for performing evasive maneuvers.

Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a system for controlled and uniform chaff disper- Another object is to provide a method and apparatus for dispersing chaff ahead of an aircraft in a controlled and uniform manner.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a system of dispersing chaff from an airborne rocket whereby the chaff may be used as a major deception measure in large-scale tactical operations.

A final object of this invention is a system for dispersing chaff in a uniform and controlled manner from a rocket carrier which may be tired from an aircraft.

Other objects and features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art to which the disclosure is directed from the following detailed description of the annexed drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a sketch illustrating the technique of dispersing chaff according to the instant invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatical, perspective view of a rocket head illustrating how the chaff packages are mounted and exploded.

tion to the plane 12 against proximity fuzed and guided missiles such as shown at 14 in addition to protection against fire control radar. Moreover, the chaff will deny knowledge to the enemy of the number, size and location of any aircraft following the dispensing plane.

As diagrammatically shown in FIG. 2, the rocket dispensing head 11 has a main body portion 15 with a nose cone 16 at one end and a chaff firing mechanism 17 at the other end. The intermediate portion of the body 15 is divided into a plurality of sections, such as indicated at A, B, C and D by the partitions 23 for housing the chaff containers. Each section has an explosive container 24 mounted through member 15 and a switch 25 which operates to complete a circuit from the firing mechanism to the explosive container in the adjacent section as will hereinafter be explained in more detail. The rocket head and firing mechanism is adapted to be attached to any standard rocket motor and fired from a launcher attached to an aircraft; however, the motor and launcher have not been shown since they form no part of the present invention.

The chaff containers are formed by the cylinder halves 26 which are preferably of a frangible material such as metal, plastic or the like, and which are secured to the rocket head by a frangible fastener 21 passing through each cylinder half into an end of the explosive container. The dipoles, which are stacked in orderly rows parallel to the longitudinal axis of the chaff containers, are dispersed by the exploding charge which is applied to the sides of the dipoles results in a cloud of uniformly dispersed chaff as compared to the birdsnesting encountered in other systems of chaff dispersion.

Reference is made to compartment A in FIG. 2 which shows the container halves 26 immediately after the frangible fastener and the explosive charge have been disintegrated.

The circuit for exploding the chaff containers, shown in FIG. 3, is composed of a control unit located in the aircraft and a rocket unit located in the firing mechanism 17 of the rocket head. When the ready switch RS is closed by the pilot a circuit is completed from the 300 volt source through the resistances R and R? thereby building up a charge in capacitor C. The closing of the firing switch FS acts through the rocket to motor connecting rings RM to fire the rocket from the plane. Upon departure of the rocket from the plane the circuit is broken at the rings connecting the rocket to the motor, RM and at the ground ring, GR. Before departure the circuit will be completed through R to fire the squib SO, and the capacitor C will be charged by the charge leaking from C. As the squib is tired, the pressure switch PS will open PS and move switch PS to the right allowing the charge on C to leak to the capacitor C through resistance R". A charge will then be built up in the cold cathode diode CCD which will pop off and fire the first explosive charge 24a located in the compartment A. The switch 25a also located in section A is biased toward a closed circuit position but is held in a normally open position by any suitable means, such as by a frangible flap 28, which is destroyed or released by the explosion of the explosive thereby completing the circuit to a second explosive can 24b located in the adjacent section B. A second charge is then built up on the cold cathode diode which pops off to fire can 24b, the explosion closing switch 25b which completes the circuit to the next can 25c in section and so on until all the chaff has been ejected from the rocket head.

Referring to FIG. 4, 29 indicates a modified construction of a chaff container which may be fired by means of fuzes 31 which ignite the quick match 32. The cans 29 can be mounted end to end as shown in FIG. 2 with the fuzes 32 extending the length of the main body portion 33 so that when a squib in the firing mechanism of the rocket dispensing head lights the fuzes, they will burn the length of the rocket head thereby exploding the chaff containers at intervals determined by the burning rate of the fuzes. The chaff container body is preferably constructed of a frangible material such as previously described in connection with FIG. 2, and may either be a unitary cylinder or cylinder halves held together by a frangible rim. As shown in FIG. 5, the chaff carrying capacity of the rocket dispensing head may be increased by mounting the chaff containers 34 radially about the central body member of the rocket head. The rings of chaff containers are exploded at intervals, each ring being progressively exhausted by discharging two containers from diametrically opposed sides of the ring so as to prevent yawing of the rocket body. The means for exploding the frangible chaff containers may be either electronic as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 or pyrotechnic as shown in FIG. 4.

The operation of the disclosed invention is as follows. At a desired point in flight the pilot will close the ready switch and subsequently the firing switch which causes the rocket dispensing head to be fired ahead of the aircraft. The chaff containers will be exploded at intervals from the airborne rocket uniformly dispensing chaff in a cloud, the intervals being set to allow time for tactical and evasive maneuvers of the dispensing aircraft. Although the preferred embodiment of the invention shows only four chaff packages carried by the rocket head, it will be apparent that the disclosed system will permit the continuous dispersion of any number of packages without interruption. It will further be apparent that the disclosed equipment may either be made standard for special countermeasures planes, or readily installed in any larger type planes.

Various other modifications are contemplated and may obviously be resorted to by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, as hereinafter defined by the appended claims, as only the preferred embodiments thereof have been disclosed.

What is claimed is:

l. A chaff dispersion apparatus having a substantially cylindrical rocket dispensing head adapted to be fired from an aircraft, the improvement in said dispensing head comprising a main body portion, a nose cone mounted on the forward end of said main body portion and variable firing means mounted at the rearward end thereof, a plurality of sections in said rocket head located intermediate said nose cone and said firing means, a plurality of equally spaced partitions mounted perpendicularly on said main body portion forming said sections, a frangible container enclosing each section, chaff stacked in orderly rows within said containers, an explosive charge within each container mounted on the axis of said main body portion to insure that the forces of the explosive are applied to the chaff in a radial direction and said variable firing means progressively exploding said charges after said rocket head has been fired from the aircraft whereby said frangible containers are destroyed, the chaff dispersed in a radial direction and the rocket head is left intact after each explosion to continue its flight.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein the rocket head has a single row of sections in end to end' relationship.

3. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein the rocket head has a plurality of rows of sections radially arranged around the central axis of said rocket head.

4. A chaff dispersing apparatus adapted for firing from an aircraft comprising a longitudinal support member, a nose cone mounted on one end of said support, a rocket fuel compartment mounted on the other end of said support, a plurality of disc shaped members mounted on and traversing said support in a perpendicular manner so that the area between the nose cone and the rocket compartment along said support is divided into a plurality of chambers, an explosive container in each chamber mounted through said support and adapted to receive a bolt from each end projecting through said support, chaff packed in each chamber around the explosive container, a pair of semi-cylindrical frangible shells closing each chamber, a frangible bolt secured in an end of said explosive container to hold each semi-cylindrical shell in place, and a means for firing said explosive containers at predetermined intervals so that said bolt and said semi-cylindrical shells are ruptured allowing the explosive force to disperse the chaff into the air.

5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 4 wherein said means for firing the explosive containers at predetermined intervals comprises a continuous pyrotechnic fuze passing through each explosive container and which is initially ignited by the burning of the rocket fuel in said rocket fuel compartment.

6. An apparatus as claimed in claim .4 wherein said means for firing the explosive containers at predetermined intervals comprises an electronic circuit.

7. An apparatus as claimed in claim 6 wherein said electronic circuit is a first capacitor connected across a direct current voltage source, a second capacitor operatively associated with said first capacitor, a first pressure switch operatively connected between said first and second capacitors, said first pressure switch having a first position connecting said first and second capacitors in series and having a second position opening the circuit between said first and second capacitors,

a third capacitor operatively associated. with sai'cl' second capacitor, a second pressure switch operatively connected between said second and third capacitors,

said second pressure switch having a first position opening the circuit between said second and third capacitors and connecting said third capacitor to ground and having a second position connecting said second and third capacitors is series, a squib connected across said first capacitor, said first and second pressure switches operatively positioned with relationship to said squib, said first and second switches being in their first positions when said squib is unfired, said first and second pressure switches being changed to their second positions upon the firing of said squib, a cold cathode diode connected across said third capacitor, said explosive containers being operatively associated with said diode, a first of said explosive containers being connected in series with said diode, the remainder of said explosive containers each having a frangible flap switch operatively associated therewith, each frangible flap switch having a first position opening the circuit between its respective explosive container and said diode and having a second position closing the circuit between 'its respective explosive container and said diode, said first explosive container upon explosion closing a first of said frangible flap switches, the remainder of said frangible flap switches and said explosive containers except the last explosive container operating in the same manner as said first frangible flap switch and said first explosive container.

8. A chaff dispensing apparatus comprising a longitudinal support member having a forward and an after end, division members mounted on and traversing said support for forming a plurality of chambers along said support member, a frangible shell enclosing each chamber, explosive means mounted within each chamber, said explosive means consisting of an explosive charge within a container that is perpendicularly mounted in a bore within said support means and projecting radially therefrom to said frangible shell, a frangible securing means for securing each frangible shell to said support, said frangible securing means extending through said shell and fixedly secured to the outer ends of said explosive container, chaff packed in each chamber around the explosive container, and firing means for firing said explosive means at predetermined intervals.

9. A chaff dispersing apparatus as claimed in claim 8 wherein each frangible shell is cylindrical in shape and is divided into two parts.

10. A chaff dispersing apparatus as claimed in claim 9 wherein said firing means includes a continuous pyrotechnic fuze passing through each explosive container and further includes igniting means for igniting said pyrotechnic fuze. 

1. A chaff dispersion apparatus having a substantially cylindrical rocket dispensing head adapted to be fired from an aircraft, the improvement iN said dispensing head comprising a main body portion, a nose cone mounted on the forward end of said main body portion and variable firing means mounted at the rearward end thereof, a plurality of sections in said rocket head located intermediate said nose cone and said firing means, a plurality of equally spaced partitions mounted perpendicularly on said main body portion forming said sections, a frangible container enclosing each section, chaff stacked in orderly rows within said containers, an explosive charge within each container mounted on the axis of said main body portion to insure that the forces of the explosive are applied to the chaff in a radial direction and said variable firing means progressively exploding said charges after said rocket head has been fired from the aircraft whereby said frangible containers are destroyed, the chaff dispersed in a radial direction and the rocket head is left intact after each explosion to continue its flight.
 2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein the rocket head has a single row of sections in end to end relationship.
 3. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein the rocket head has a plurality of rows of sections radially arranged around the central axis of said rocket head.
 4. A chaff dispersing apparatus adapted for firing from an aircraft comprising a longitudinal support member, a nose cone mounted on one end of said support, a rocket fuel compartment mounted on the other end of said support, a plurality of disc shaped members mounted on and traversing said support in a perpendicular manner so that the area between the nose cone and the rocket compartment along said support is divided into a plurality of chambers, an explosive container in each chamber mounted through said support and adapted to receive a bolt from each end projecting through said support, chaff packed in each chamber around the explosive container, a pair of semi-cylindrical frangible shells closing each chamber, a frangible bolt secured in an end of said explosive container to hold each semi-cylindrical shell in place, and a means for firing said explosive containers at predetermined intervals so that said bolt and said semi-cylindrical shells are ruptured allowing the explosive force to disperse the chaff into the air.
 5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 4 wherein said means for firing the explosive containers at predetermined intervals comprises a continuous pyrotechnic fuze passing through each explosive container and which is initially ignited by the burning of the rocket fuel in said rocket fuel compartment.
 6. An apparatus as claimed in claim 4 wherein said means for firing the explosive containers at predetermined intervals comprises an electronic circuit.
 7. An apparatus as claimed in claim 6 wherein said electronic circuit is a first capacitor connected across a direct current voltage source, a second capacitor operatively associated with said first capacitor, a first pressure switch operatively connected between said first and second capacitors, said first pressure switch having a first position connecting said first and second capacitors in series and having a second position opening the circuit between said first and second capacitors, a third capacitor operatively associated with said second capacitor, a second pressure switch operatively connected between said second and third capacitors, said second pressure switch having a first position opening the circuit between said second and third capacitors and connecting said third capacitor to ground and having a second position connecting said second and third capacitors is series, a squib connected across said first capacitor, said first and second pressure switches operatively positioned with relationship to said squib, said first and second switches being in their first positions when said squib is unfired, said first and second pressure switches being changed to their second positions upon the firing of said squib, a cold cathode diode connected acroSs said third capacitor, said explosive containers being operatively associated with said diode, a first of said explosive containers being connected in series with said diode, the remainder of said explosive containers each having a frangible flap switch operatively associated therewith, each frangible flap switch having a first position opening the circuit between its respective explosive container and said diode and having a second position closing the circuit between its respective explosive container and said diode, said first explosive container upon explosion closing a first of said frangible flap switches, the remainder of said frangible flap switches and said explosive containers except the last explosive container operating in the same manner as said first frangible flap switch and said first explosive container.
 8. A chaff dispensing apparatus comprising a longitudinal support member having a forward and an after end, division members mounted on and traversing said support for forming a plurality of chambers along said support member, a frangible shell enclosing each chamber, explosive means mounted within each chamber, said explosive means consisting of an explosive charge within a container that is perpendicularly mounted in a bore within said support means and projecting radially therefrom to said frangible shell, a frangible securing means for securing each frangible shell to said support, said frangible securing means extending through said shell and fixedly secured to the outer ends of said explosive container, chaff packed in each chamber around the explosive container, and firing means for firing said explosive means at predetermined intervals.
 9. A chaff dispersing apparatus as claimed in claim 8 wherein each frangible shell is cylindrical in shape and is divided into two parts.
 10. A chaff dispersing apparatus as claimed in claim 9 wherein said firing means includes a continuous pyrotechnic fuze passing through each explosive container and further includes igniting means for igniting said pyrotechnic fuze. 